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by Medeafic



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:53:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl is searching for a place to call home.  Set in 1995/6 and 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the INCREDIBLY patient LJer griffndor, for the helpbrazil2011 charity auction.
> 
> This is an AU fic in which neither Karl nor Eric ever married, although it follows the general structure of their careers (with some fudging on the timeline). Karl did spend a year in Australia around 1995, which is what I based this story on. Since I finally got a chance to exploit my own culture, there are a lot of Australian terms and slang throughout.
> 
> The excerpted quotes at the beginning of each part are links to the full songs on YouTube.
> 
> Thanks to: emmessann, who gave me a hall pass <3\. janice_lester, especially for that one suggestion that made me change around the entire structure of this story, your En-Zed eye as a beta, sharing your Karl Urban Guide in draft form, answering many dumb questions, and oh yeah, being freaking awesome. I OWE YOU. lousy_science, who supplied me with fantastic information on mid-nineties New Zealand culture and did not overtly sigh about the Australian need to steal all the best NZ stuff. Also: KITCHEN BENCHES 4 EVA. zjofierose, who hears me whine and whinge more than just about anyone else - and actually listens to it. I don't know how you do it, honey. And finally, to my lovely Melburnian friend Nef, who beta'd for city accuracy and encouraged me throughout.

 

  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/medea_fic/pic/0003k3ta/)   
  


 

  
**  
_Part One: 2008_  
**  
 ****  
 _  
Los Angeles  
_  
  
 _  
[  
That certain texture, that certain smell  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=0PlaTF66lTw)  
_  
 _  
[  
Brings home the heavy days  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=0PlaTF66lTw)  
_  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=0PlaTF66lTw)  
Brings home the night time swell

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

  
Karl heard the news about Eric’s _Star Trek_ casting from Eric himself, although he heard it through the industry grapevine first. They’ve kept up over the years – spent a whole night talking on the phone after _Chopper_ debuted. That cost Karl a fortune, but he paid it gladly, and anyway, by that stage his own career was taking off too. Regular work, if nothing really high-profile.

They run into each other on set, arriving for the first full-cast read-through of the script. Karl doesn’t even recognise Eric – barely registers that he’s walking past some tall bald bloke, because he’s worried he’ll be late for the reading.

“Oi, dickhead,” says a familiar voice. Karl turns and stares.

“ _Eric?_ ”

Eric still smells exactly the same when he envelops Karl in a bear hug. The knowledge hits Karl deep in the gut like nausea, a cramp of longing and nostalgia. His head is smooth and warm as Karl automatically wraps a hand around the back of his neck, extends fingers into hair that is not there.

They pull away at last, Eric shaking him by the shoulders like he can’t believe Karl is real. Karl can’t stop himself from touching his head again, running over the soft skin.

“Call me Curly,” Eric says. “Just did it this morning. Thought I’d better get used to it.” He runs his own hand over it, self-conscious. “What do you think?”

“Not as bad as my bleach job for _Xena_ ,” Karl says with a crooked smile. The memories comes back with such clarity that he could almost believe they were both twelve years younger, living in a crappy two-room apartment and using one of those rooms as storage space for old televisions, a broken computer, the unused ironing board.

“I’m hoping they’ll make me really fugly,” Eric says. “I mean, this is _Star Trek_ , right? They won’t try to pretty-up the villain?”

“Wouldn’t have a hope of making you pretty, anyway.”

Eric laughs and they turn together to amble into the building. “How’s life treating you?”

“Good, mate, good. You?”

“Can’t complain.”

Karl misses him more in this moment than he ever did when they were an ocean apart with lives diverging. He wants to ask if Eric ever thinks about it, about the younger years and the too-hot bedroom that stank every morning of their night-before sex. About Sunday afternoons spent on Bondi Beach, or at Eric’s parents’ place for a lamb roast, and Sunday night spent watching the footy, the evening slowly twisting itself closed until they stumbled to bed, too late for anything but a quick mutual jerk because they had to be up by five to be on-site.

Eric takes him aside that afternoon, after the formal work is over for the day. The work of the actors continues, though – they hang back, reluctant to leave, seeking connections, finding parts of themselves to share.

“I’ve been thinking,” Eric begins.

Karl feigns concern. “Don’t strain yourself.”

“Ha-bloody-ha. We should catch up over a drink,” Eric says. “See if we can find some place in this hell-hole of a city that serves a decent brew.”

“Outback Steakhouse?” Karl suggests with a grin, and ducks as Eric pretends to punch him.

Chris Pine bounds up then, putting on an awful Crocodile Hunter act, and Eric is forced to retaliate with a George W Bush impression. One parody leads to another, until they are mercifully separated by a calm Zachary Quinto and herded out to a bar where they’re all going to get to know each other. Together. In one big group.

Eric catches Karl’s eye several times that night, but there's no chance for a private moment.

  
***

  
They barely work together during filming and have no scenes one-on-one, although Karl does his best to be on-set when Eric is shooting. No one seems to notice anything odd between them, accepting that they’re old friends. Karl never mentions that one year they had together. Eric, to Karl’s knowledge, doesn’t mention it either, an unspoken agreement that they don’t need everyone knowing their business.

For Karl, that year he spent in Australia is looming larger in his mind every day, painted in the brilliant colours of happiness now that he can forget the bad bits, the uncomfortable bits, and remember the best bits. Remember Eric.

Somehow they never go to have that drink that Eric suggested. Karl thinks it might be better that way – he’s not anxious for the cast to start wondering about them. One day, however, Zach comes across them unexpectedly, huddled in the back of an unused set. His half-eyebrows shoot comically high.

“Oh, excuse me,” he says, when his brows return to their proper place. “I’ll, uh. Leave you to it.” He retreats.

“We weren’t even…” Karl says, and Eric gives a confirming snort. They look at each other, faces shadowed in the darkness, and down at the script they’ve been reading over. Eric has received a new offer and he wondered what Karl thought of the part.

They’ve been reading it together by tipping it into the one patch of light that has made its way through the gloom, and Karl wonders now why they didn’t read it outside, or over lunch together.

Eric’s eyes are black in the dim light, his bald pate covered by a knitted beanie pulled firmly down over normal, human ears, rather than the pointy Romulan ears to which Karl is growing accustomed. Eric isn’t even on call for filming today, but Karl hasn’t questioned why he’s on-set. He knows why Eric is here; he’s here because Karl is here. They’ve been hovering on the outskirts of something for a while, neither of them man enough to bring it up.

“I was such a shit when we were kids,” Karl says suddenly. “And scared all the time.”

“Come on. You weren’t that bad.”

“I was scared of everything. Scared of a new country. Scared of failure. Scared of never being as good.”

“As good as what?”

“Not what. Who.”

Eric stands up. “Are we about to have a d-and-m? Because I’ll need a beer if we are.”

Karl regards him, tall and filled out for Nero, but his features the same as twelve years ago – a little more weathered, a few more laugh-lines to frame his eyes when he smiles.

“Your shout,” he says, and stands to follow Eric out of the lot.

 

 

  
  
****  
_Part Two: 1995_

 

  


  
  
**  
__  
**  
  
  
****  
_Sydney_  
  
  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShQfeDjmcZY)  
You gotta love this city for its body and not its brain

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

 

“Are you fucken kidding me? You’re not even qualified as a brickie. The fuck was Jules thinking?” The words are harsh, but the site supervisor’s tone is mild. Karl has become inured to the Australian need to swear every fifth word or so – and every second when they’re drunk, which seems to happen with loving regularity.

“I’m not qualified, but I’ve taken on unskilled labour before. Many times.”

“Many times?” The supervisor, inexplicably named Azza, mimics his tone. He’s young, probably not more than five years older than Karl, and a head shorter. His shoulders are much broader than Karl’s, though, which gives him a solid, here-I-am air.

“A lot. Mate,” Karl adds for good measure. He’d damn his recent acting training for the modulated tones of his voice, but it’s that training that he hopes will see him through picking up some work on the construction site. If he can get it together and stop making himself sound like such a muppet.

“You’re not union,” Azza says, as though it clinches things.

“I…can be? If it helps?” Karl’s made his way this far on charm, so he gives his best cheeky grin. It seemed to work better on Jules, the girl in the reception area of the site, than it does on Azza, though. “I have my visa, and I’ve been approved for unskilled construction. I can join the union? If you want I can give you the name of my immigration officer—”

“Fuck that. Where here have you worked?”

“Anywhere I can pick up something. I was with Hume Construction a few weeks back on the new development over in Coogee, but that finished up. Right now, I’m looking.”

“Dole bludging?” There’s a knowing tone in Azza’s voice. “We don’t take bludgers here, mate. We need you to do a decent day’s work.”

Karl sighs. “I’m not on the dole, _mate_. You have to be resident for more than—”

Azza turns and hollers across the site. “ _Oi!_ Bananaman!”

“ _What?_ ” Bananaman hollers back. From this distance, all Karl can see is a mass of black curls under a yellow hardhat, and what looks like broad, muscular shoulders under a fluorescent yellow vest.

“Fresh meat for the barbie!”

Karl has been in Australia for long enough to be able to translate: he’s been given a chance to work on the site. Under Bananaman, apparently.

He’s not sure what ‘Bananaman’ translates to in a civilised tongue.

“G’day,” Bananaman says, when he reaches them, and Karl enjoys the firm grip of the handshake, energetic and certain. Bananaman has dark brown eyes and a face that reminds Karl of statues of the Roman Emperors: strong, autocratic nose, angular bones and lines already beginning to carve themselves from his eyes to his temples.

Hot as, basically. Karl squeezes back on the handshake.

“I’m Eric. Eric Banadinovich.”

“Zis is Karl-Heinz, _ja_?” Azza says in a bad German accent. Karl and Eric look back at him, silent. “Poor bastard seems to be half-German and half-sheepfucker, so we won’t expect too much from him.”

“It’s Karl,” Karl says to Eric. “Good to meet you. And I’m just surprised you’re going to take me on. I’ve been all over Sydney trying to find work for weeks.”

“Heinzy here swam over the Tasman to bludge and found out he couldn’t,” Azza supplies helpfully. “You can show him the ropes, Bananaman. Start him out easy, because he knows bugger-all by the sound of him.” He turns to Karl. “Don’t fucken kill yourself, mate, okay? Get along to Julie during next smoko and she’ll have some paperwork for you. You can read and write, I hope. Never know with Kiwis.”

Karl is used to the ribbing after a few months in Australia, and expects it more often that not, so he just nods. Azza starts walking away, and Eric raises his voice. “Azza. Oi, Azz. While I’ve got you, we’re going to need more gyprock for the walls, so you’ll have to call Simmo at supplies and tell him—”

“For fuck’s sake, we’ve already gone over budget on the bloody walls, and Simmo couldn’t organise a root in a brothel.”

Karl stands by, trying to look like he’s part of the conversation, while Eric and Azza talk business. The construction site is quiet today. Two men across the way in hazard masks are removing some slabs of fibro from the walls of the renovation, where Karl assumes the needed gyprock will be put in. He hopes there’s no asbestos floating around, but figures a Government site like this would have sussed it out pre-renovation.

It’s a small building, but important, or so he’s heard – new offices for the national public TV station. Karl doesn’t spend much time watching the ABC. He’s been watching Aussie soaps, trying to get a feel for their storylines. Once he gets enough money together, he’s planning to move down to Melbourne to try out for _Neighbours_. Sydney isn’t turning out to be the theatre Mecca his agent raved about, so it’s back to telly. Karl’s TV resume from New Zealand is short, but at least they’re well-known shows. Or…they were back home. He’s yet to find an Australian channel that plays _Shortland Street_.

He’s found work now, at least. His parents have been sending him extra for a few months, but Karl feels bad about it. So, contrary to Azza’s expectations, Karl arrives early to the site, works hard, leaves late in the afternoon, and is polite to senior staff until Azz himself takes him aside: “Word to the wise, mate. No-one likes an arse-licker.” Karl has a horrible cold squeezing in his chest before he realises what Azz means.

He stops making such an effort at work, comes in late twice a week and leaves early sometimes with the other blokes to stop at the pub. Then he heads home to his crappy motel for a cold can of baked beans and some bread and butter for dinner, and his own depressing thoughts. It’s an existence he’s used to as an actor, but one that becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate as a manual labourer. For one thing, he needs more sustenance; he’s losing weight _and_ muscle tone, as Eric is quick to point out two weeks into the job.

“Need to get yourself a lady friend,” he suggests with a wink, when Karl explains his lack of cooking skills, not to mention kitchen. They’re mixing concrete together. Karl’s back is aching but he ignores it to shovel more dry mix. He stops mid-shovel at Eric’s words, wondering if there’s something deeper there, and pastes a smile on his face.

“Nah. I’m good,” he says awkwardly.

Eric, thankfully, doesn’t seem to notice anything.

“You should move in with me,” Eric laughs. “Azza’s finally getting off my couch and moving in with his girl next week.”

“Okay,” Karl says. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Mate, I was joking. My sofa bed is awful. No real mattress, just a foam insert.”

“Oh. Right.” Karl laughs as though he was just joking, too, but he can feel kind brown eyes on his face.

“Where are you now?” Eric asks.

Karl shrugs. “Motel.”

“Costing you a lot?”

“Cheap as chips, actually.” Karl suspects the rates are so low because no one has been hired to ever clean anything. The cockroaches are getting bolder each night. “But I’ve been looking for somewhere permanent. I can’t get a rental on my own because I don’t have three bills with the same address or two pieces of Australian ID yet. I’ve been looking for a share, but…” But the share houses in Karl’s price range are always dreadlocked hippies, or Leathermen, or vegan, or something else that Karl doesn’t fit and they never call him back. Even if they did, he’s not sure he could stand it.

“Fuck it,” Eric says. “Why not, eh? Move in to my place till you find somewhere better, if you like.”

“Yeah?” Karl wants to demur, to be polite, but the thought of having human contact after work hours, instead of sinking into maudlin thoughts about how much acting work he’s _not_ getting – God, it sounds like paradise.

“Yeah. I’m not kidding, mate – that couch is shithouse, but if you want it, it’s yours. Could do with some company anyway, once Azza’s gone.”

“What’s she like, his girlfriend?” Karl asks, suddenly full of fondness and well-wishing for the anonymous woman.

“Debs? Yeah, she’s nice,” Eric says, and continues shovelling concrete mix. “Azz knows he’s on a good wicket there. Once you’re settled in we should have them over for dinner or something.” The day is hot, and they both pause again to wipe sweat out of their eyes and resettle hard hats. Karl tries not to eye Eric too much as he strips off his regulation work shirt and ties it around his waist, nothing but a singlet underneath – but Eric catches him staring. “I know, I know. If Azz sees me it’ll be a scene, but it’s too fucking hot today.”

Karl takes a look around. Azz is nowhere to be seen and besides, they’re in the back part of the building where they can’t be seen by curious passersby. He strips off his flannie and throws it aside.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Eric asks, when it’s time for smoko. Neither of them smoke – well, Eric does, but he’s currently quitting – but they still get a ten minute break to rehydrate, consider the next project for the day. “In Australia, I mean. No offence, mate, but all this hard yakka doesn’t seem to come naturally to you.”

“I’m keeping up,” Karl replies, stung, but Eric just grins back at him, swigs the rest of the liquid from his plastic company water bottle.

“Just taking the piss,” Eric says. “Settle down.”

“I’m an actor.”

“An actor?” Most of the people Karl has told here in Australia laugh at him or at least give a disbelieving smile, but not Eric. “Huh. That’s pretty cool. So you’re just doing this in your downtime?”

“Yup.”

“Theatre, TV or movies?”

“Whatever I can find. I was on a soap back in New Zealand, so I thought here maybe—”

“ _Neighbours_?”

“Yeah.”

“They shoot in Melbourne, though.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, I thought I might move down there at some point. Or there’s _Home and Away_ , they film here. But honestly, I’d take a bloody commercial at this point.”

“You’ll find something,” Eric says with confidence. “And we’ll all be able to say we knew you when. I think it’s great, anyway. When I was a kid I liked the idea of acting.”

Karl tries not to look shocked. It’s just that Eric seems so comfortable, at home on a building site, fitting in with the workers with an ease that Karl envies. “Really?” he asks.

“Yeah. But my dad works for a construction equipment company, so when I was looking for a job it seemed like the natural thing. My older brother got the brains in the family – he’s a banker.” Eric gives a small smile, and Karl thinks he sees some regret in it until Eric glances at his watch. “C’arn, then. Time to get back to it.”

Karl learned very quickly on-site that _c’arn_ is a supremely Australian term used to exhort others to action: _come on_ , drawled out until it’s unrecognisable. “I’m c’arning,” he sighs, and Eric doubles over with laughter.

“You’re a fucking comedian sometimes, Heinzy.”

Karl doesn’t mind the nickname so much when Eric says it.

  
 _***_

  
Sydney is loud and dirty for the most part, especially the construction sites, but Eric takes him out to see the Harbour a week later and it’s a thing of beauty. Karl has been here before, of course – it was the first place on his list of sightseeing – but that particular day was grey and cloudy and the water looked murky, the Opera House dingy under a threatening sky. He’d compared it disparagingly to Wellington and Auckland Harbours – sure, Sydney Harbour might be bigger, and have a whacking great bridge, but it’s no prettier. Besides, he’d thought with a patriotic burst of feeling, the Auckland Harbour Bridge is every bit as impressive as the Coathanger.

He goes with Eric on a glorious late spring day, and…okay. He understands now why people call it one of the most naturally beautiful harbours on Earth. They lean against the metal fence just past the Bridge, licking ice-creams – far inferior to New Zealand ice-cream, but Karl doesn’t comment – and looking at the sails of the Opera House gleaming cream and gold in the sunshine.

“You know you can get a snow globe of the Opera House?” Eric says, waving his cone at it. “How fucking stupid is that?”

“Now I want one.”

“You’re a contrary bugger,” Eric tells him, but later, when they’ve been through the Rocks and are entering the cheesy tourist shops closer to the ferries, he buys Karl one of the snow globes. “Welcome-to-Oz present,” he says. Karl shakes it and they both watch, transfixed, as glittery flakes resettle over the Opera House.

The beach at Bondi is beautiful too, and only a twenty-minute walk from the apartment. They spend a lot of time on the beach because the apartment is small and stuffy. The air-con makes the heat bearable, but it’s expensive to run, and things only get worse when spring turns to summer. Karl finds, however, that his favourite memories are made in the small unit at night, just spending time with Eric. Watching whatever sport is showing on Eric’s ancient television, or the soaps, despite Eric’s complaints – for research, Karl insists (although Eric seems just as engrossed as he does each night). Making sandwiches for a quick dinner, or walking down to the local takeaway for chicken and chips.

Eric is easy to be around. The only awkward parts are those times when Karl stays out all night, or Eric does, letting themselves back into the apartment quietly on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Karl tries to keep it to once, twice a month tops, since he wants to avoid any difficult questions. Eric seems to be the same way, never inviting any girls back to their self-described Bachelor Pad, although Karl wouldn’t care if he did. He can make himself scarce with the best of them.

Karl has started seeing a hot older guy on a semi-regular basis, catching up with him in Darlinghurst where he _knows_ he won’t run into anyone from work. He’s some kind of public servant and Karl likes the way his hair is greying at the temples. His name is Andy, or possibly Gary. Karl was drunk enough the first time to forget it the next morning and it hasn’t seemed polite to raise the issue after several more hook-ups. One day he’ll figure it out. In the meantime, it keeps Karl Junior occupied enough so that Karl Senior can maintain a nice, blokey friendship with Eric.

Just mates.

 

  
  
**  
_Part Three: 2008_  
**  
  
  
 ****  
 _Los Angeles_  
  
  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwl7tthqzkA)  
Every fucking city feels the same

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

  
They do end up at an Outback Steakhouse, sharing mutual horror at the idea of a Bloomin’ Onion and ordering it anyway. As Eric points out, “If there’s one thing the Seppos are great at, it’s deep-frying stuff.”

“Don’t call them that,” Karl says, although he can’t help chuckling. “They’re paying our bloody salary at the moment.”

“I’m just joking. They don’t know what it means, anyway.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!”

The other positive about the Outback Steakhouse is that it has a small range of Australian beers, although Fosters is one of them. Karl and Eric exchange a look over the menu and dissolve into laughter. The server waits patiently for them with a bright smile while they pull themselves together.

“I’ll have a Cascade,” Eric says eventually, and Karl adds, “Make it two.”

Eric orders a surf and turf, and Karl a steak with mushroom sauce. They talk about Eric’s script while they wait, and Karl advises him to take the gig. “Looks solid,” he says. “Nice that you can pick and choose these days.”

“Mate, did you see _Love the Beast_? Now _that_ was a project of pure love.”

Karl picks at the Cascade label with a blunt fingernail. “I saw it.” He got it on DVD one night, because he knew it would be too hard to sit through it in a theatre, with all the associated memories. Eric’s documentary of his love for his car – the same car Karl vandalised one drunken night – did bring things back, and he had to pause it a few times and do something to distract himself while he waited for the ache to settle. “Looks like she came through alright after the duct tape incident,” Karl says. “Till you fucking smashed her.”

Eric roars with laughter at that, and the Bloomin’ Onion arrives at the table, and they agree that the Yanks do know their trashy food.

Eric says, “I think about that afternoon a lot, you know, with the duct tape. Watching you wash her down, getting yourself wetter than she was. You were such a little cock-tease.”

Karl splutters on his beer. “You’re the one who stood there staring at my arse the whole time!” The laughing helps him cough up some of the beer that went down the wrong way. “It was a good year, that year,” he says, after their mains have arrived and they’re tucking in.

“That’s not the way you tell it in your interviews.”

Karl looks up, surprised. He rarely talks about his time in Australia to the press – maybe once or twice early on, when his career started taking off. “Well. It was tough for me, that year. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

“Yeah. It’s a pity we fucked it up.”

The idea that somehow they actively screwed it up rather than passively let things slide is a new concept to Karl. “How do you mean?”

Eric puts down his knife and fork and slings an arm over the back of the booth, stares across the restaurant. “I don’t know,” he says, looking anywhere but at Karl. “I could have gone with you to En-Zed. I thought about it at the time.”

“It wasn’t going to happen. You were just getting successful around then.” Karl cuts off another slice of beef slowly, puts it in his mouth, chews, swallows. Eric is still looking out at the other patrons, and takes off his beanie, rubbing a hand absentmindedly over his stubbled head.  Karl wonders if it itches. “You still keep in touch with Azz?”

Eric swivels around again with sparkling eyes and attacks his meal with renewed gusto. “Yeah. Him and Debs have a fourth on the way.”

“Fourth?” Karl winces. “Tell him to keep it in his pants.”

“Nah, never happen. They love the ankle-biters. You should hear him talk about them, prouder of his daughter’s first step than he was being made Project Manager. He’s still with Garrett O’Donnell. They tried to make him take up a managerial position in Head Office but he swore a blue streak until they let him stay on-site.”

“Good. That’s good.”

They haven’t spoken about Azza, or Sydney, and definitely not Melbourne, for years. When they chat on the phone or catch up during coinciding intercontinental visits, they talk about work. Career choices. Casually, about boyfriends – relationships that lasted for a few years, relationships that failed, relationships that barely got off the ground. Cities they’ve seen, movies they’ve seen, TV shows they haven’t seen because they have no time. The footy.

But they’ve never talked about the year they spent together, a year that, Karl feels more certain each time he thinks about it, changed him in ways he didn’t see coming. Each time he thinks it over, he sees a different thing. He remembers the way that Eric looked at him through dark glasses when Karl was washing down his car, and that sudden dropping of the mouth – it had struck Karl a few years back that the moment had been pivotal for Eric, that Eric’s attitude towards him had changed after that. It made Karl dress in tighter jeans after he figured it out. Obviously his rear view has a magic of its own.

Then there was the time Karl was trying to make apple crumble from a recipe Eric’s mum gave them, because Azz and Debs were coming over for tea and, as much as they joked about the Bachelor Pad, Karl really wanted to make a nice meal that they’d all enjoy, stereotypes be damned. He was swearing loud and long at their oven, which always ran too hot and burnt everything, had turned the crumble from golden when he’d checked it three minutes ago into something black when he went to pull it out. He stopped ranting when he caught sight of Eric, watching him from the doorway.

“We don’t have any ice-cream anyway,” Eric had said. “Let’s go buy a Sara Lee, and we can get some ice-cream from the shops too.”

“It’s not that difficult,” Karl said, exasperated. “It’s not that fucking difficult but—” He took a deep breath, “— _somehow_ I keep fucking it up!” Three blackened failures littered the kitchen bench. Thank Christ he hadn’t tried pavlova like he’d originally planned; apart from the bickering it would have caused over the origin – an invention from Australia or New Zealand? – Eric’s mum had warned him off pavs as a first-time baker. “And anyway, your ice-cream is fucking awful!”

“Alright,” Eric said with a sigh. “Let’s have a look.”

They’d figured it out together, got the oven running at the right temperature, and Karl reckoned it was a grand success after Debbie asked for the recipe. Eric had earned himself a stellar blow job that night, but what Karl remembers most is the look they shared over the table after Debs and Azz took their first bites of the crumble. Eric’s small, satisfied smile and a chorus of _Mmmmmmmms_ from their guests – Karl believed in them then. The sense of joint pride he shared with Eric, the possibility of companionship and fitting together – it was just the beginning for them.

Maybe that’s the problem, Karl thinks now, as Eric orders them two more Cascades. Maybe it’s just the unfinished aspect – the sense of something that should have been, but wasn’t.

“Maybe we just miss something we never would have had anyway,” he says, and Eric picks up his meaning.

“You reckon? I don’t know. It was…it was something.”

“Yeah, it was…something.” Karl is beginning to curse their shared Antipodean culture. Perhaps he should call Doctor Phil to make them talk it out, because the weight of manly mateship mores is crushing down on his vocabulary, robbing him of words.

Karl thinks fleetingly of Zach and Chris, wishes one or both of them were here, with their effortless way of provoking consequential discussions, their easy high-brow chatter and the flow of their conversation. Or if only he could be like John or Simon, off-the-cuff funny and able to break any tension. It’s not that Karl can’t be articulate, but with Eric here, their history shimmering between them like the fall of glitter over the snow globe Opera House, Karl cannot find the right words.

He says, “It was something, yeah. But it fizzled out.”

“Did it?”

Karl finds himself dying for another drink – not even alcohol, water would do. His tongue is dry and sticking to the insides of his mouth. He smiles, trying to cover it up. “You sticking around in America or going back to Oz after your scenes?”

“Depends.” Eric puts down his cutlery again.

“On?”

“You.”

Karl makes a frustrated half-groan, half-sigh and glares at the hostess’s back until she turns around, feeling eyes on her, and he has to look at Eric instead. “That’s bloody unfair, and you know it.”

Eric shrugs, sits back in the booth, gives a small wave as though he can wipe away the tension with it. “I’m not pushing. But the older I get the less bullshit I can put up with and with you – things were always easy with you.”

“You complete wanker,” Karl says. “You want to get back together because it’s _easy_? I’ve barely seen you in years and you want to get back together _because it’s_ _easy_?”

“Shit, I’m not _saying_ it right,” Eric replies, agitated now.

Karl immediately feels ashamed of himself. It’s not Eric’s fault things didn’t turn out between them.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?” asks a perky blonde waitress – hostess? Karl has never been able to work out the difference – and they both glare at her. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” The girl backs away.

“You’re doing wonders for the Australian tourism industry,” Karl says after a moment of silence.

“At least she’d know where Australia _was_.”

“You, my friend, are underestimating the effect of _Lord of the Rings_ on the American psyche.”

It breaks the tension. For now.

 

 

  
**  
_Part Four: 1995_  
**  
  
  
 ****  
 _Sydney_  
  
  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0mN058KDp0&feature=fvwrel)  
Feels like nothing matters in our private universe

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

They have their first real disagreement a few weeks in to living together. It’s over sport, of course, or sort of. Eric has this car, The Beast – a Ford GT Falcon Coupe that he talks about like he lost his virginity to it, and every Monday afternoon, without fail, he takes it down to the carwash place and details it. Karl has never been much for muscle cars or motor sports in general. He likes rugby. Eric prefers AFL but he follows the rugby too, and he and Karl have a friendly rivalry every Friday night. When it comes to international rugby, all bets are off. The All Blacks are going strong this season, kicking arse every time they get on the field.

The patriotic rivalry has been getting a bit out of control over the past few weeks with the Bledisloe Cup, and one Sunday night, after one beer too many, when Eric is passed out on the couch, Karl has a _great_ idea.

It doesn’t seem so great the next morning when, feeling seedy, he’s faced with six-foot-plus-inches of angry Eric Banadinovich, red-eyed and worse for wear after last night.

“You are fucking _dead_ , mate,” he tells Karl, coming nose-to-nose with him in the kitchen.

Karl replays the last nine hours in his head – only five of them spent sleeping, worse luck – and remembers. “Shit, mate. I’m sorry. You know what I’m like when I’m on the piss. It seemed like a—”

“No, no,” Eric says with a laugh that makes Karl cringe. “You’re not hearing me. You’re _fucked_.” He sounds really angry, and Karl knows now that he’s stepped over a line. He’s only here in the apartment at Eric’s pleasure, after all, some bludging En-Zedder looking to sponge off another nation’s people. Karl backs away and slides open the cracked-glass door to the balcony, steps outside in his thinning boxers to survey the damage to Eric’s car, parked on the kerb below.

It’s as bad as he remembers. He’s egged Eric’s car and written “ALL BLACKS 4 EVA” across the bonnet with duct tape. _Shit_. And yet – a small, patriotic part of Karl feels proud that he was coordinated enough and dedicated enough to write the whole thing out while under the influence.

Eric skips a shower, throws on his work clothes and stalks out of the apartment. He pulls the car up closer to the taps at the side and hoses off the worst of the eggs.

Karl expects he’ll have to find his own way to work. Ten minutes later, though, Eric is still parked in the street outside, motor running, dark sunglasses covering his glare as he stares up to the apartment. Karl packs him the last of the left over pizza for lunch and holds up the conciliatory brown paper bag when he reaches the car.

“I’m sorry, mate,” he says again. “I’ll pay for clean-up.”

“You’ll be doing the fucking clean-up yourself, you motherfucking sheep-rooter. Can’t just pull off the tape in case it’ll take off the paint, so you’ll be soaking it and peeling it up millimetre by millimetre after work. And if there is the _tiniest scratch_ on this car after you’re done, you’ll be paying for a full re-spray. Got it?” Eric has turned to him in the car, finger wagging in Karl’s face.

“Got it,” Karl agrees instantly. He’s never heard Eric swear so much before. They drive in silence to the construction site, and Eric ignores the laughing and crowing of the other blokes when they see his car. Azz approaches Karl with raised eyebrows and an inquisitive expression, but Karl just shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Azza shoves him good naturedly. “Fuck it, Heinzy, at least it wasn’t the AFL. He would’ve ripped your balls off if you’d insulted the Saints. Besides, he’s too weird over that car. I reckon he’d fuck it if he could, do it right up the tailpipe if you know what I mean.”

Karl doesn’t really, although the image of Eric fucking his car is not as laughable as it should be. He can’t help thinking about the clenching muscles in Eric’s back as he— Karl shakes his head vigorously, as though the image can be jiggled out of his brain.

Something about what Azza said sticks with him, though, as they go through a handful of paperwork. “Tailpipe, eh?” he asks again, as they look over the day’s schedule.

Azza shoots him a look and shrugs. “Yeah, mate. Not a fan of the beef curtains, our Bananaman.”

“Beef…? Oh.”

“Yeah, he’s a homo. Like you.”

“Oh.” Karl stares at the schedule, unsure whether he should protest. He didn’t make a _conscious_ decision to stay closeted – it just seemed the best thing to do for his career, especially after playing a gay character in En-Zed. And here he’d thought he had the perfect disguise – manual labourer by day, actor by night. On second thoughts, he decides ruefully, it’s not a disguise that _screams_ ‘straight’. “And everyone’s – you’re okay with that?”

Azza looks puzzled. “Mate, I don’t give a shit where you blokes put your peckers, as long as it’s nowhere near me.”

It’s only now sinking in. “Wait, wait, wait – Eric’s _gay_?”

“What are you talking about? Aren’t you two…” Azz flaps a hand.

“ _No_. What? Why would you even think that?”

“You’re two gays living together, mate. We all just assumed. Besides, that sofa bed is murder on the back. I wouldn’t blame you wanting to sleep in a proper bed and all.”

“You try to get a leg over every girl you meet just because you’re straight?” Karl snarls.

A slow smiled spreads across Azza’s sunburnt face. “I would if I were single, yeah.” He laughs, good-naturedly. They both look at the schedule again, and Azz scribbles a note in the margin.

Karl says, “Well. I didn’t know he was gay.”

“Now you do.” Azza gives him a hard, encouraging nudge in the side. “But I’m surprised you didn’t know, Heinzy. He’s not full-on about it, but he does go to Mardi Gras and all that. We all went last year with him,” he adds cheerfully, leading Karl back to the outside paving he started on Friday. “We fit right in with the Village People types. Johnno got munted and danced on one of the floats. He was really bad – we have pictures somewhere. I’ll show you if I can find them; they were up in the shed for a while but he took them down one day, the sook.”

This new information would probably have more potential if Karl wasn’t so far in the dog house with Eric. On the other hand, they’re just mates.

After work, Eric drives straight to the local CarLovers car wash, where they know him by name. The attendant shakes his head at Karl when he hears the story behind ALL BLACKS 4 EVA, and Karl can hear him muttering dark things to Eric for a good five minutes while he soaps up the bonnet and waits for the foam to soak into the duct tape.

“Oi, and the rest of it,” Eric calls to him. He’s leaning against the wall of the washing bay, watching.

The day is hot, and Karl feels bad about the whole incident, so it’s no problem for him to wash the whole car down. The remnants of the eggs have started to stink a bit, so he gives it two washes, just in case. By the time he’s finished, the tape is starting to curl up on its own, and his shirt and work jeans are wet through. He takes his time with the duct tape, leaning over the bonnet more than strictly necessary and glancing up from time to time to judge the effect. It’s hard to tell whether Eric is even looking at him, though, behind the aviator sunnies, although he feels a jolt in his crotch when he sees Eric’s lips part, curl a little, his tongue darting out once, twice, to wet his lips.

“Come and have a look,” Karl says eventually, once he’s peeled up the tape. Eric walks up next to him and runs his hand over the car, the water already evaporating in the heat. Karl watches his hand, delicate and gentle over his baby, stopping here and there to rub experimentally as though he’s hoping to arouse the machine.

It’s certainly arousing Karl. _Just mates,_ he thinks. _Just mates_.

Eric makes him sit on an old towel on the way back to the apartment so he doesn’t wet the seat, and says nothing on the trip until they pull into the kerb. Karl tries to apologise one last time.

“Sorry.”

“I’m over it.” Eric’s hand hovers over the gear stick and strays slightly into Karl’s personal space. Karl gets the impression that Eric is trying not to pat his knee.

Karl says, “I know you put up with a lot, having someone staying on your couch like I am—”

“Don’t be a dickhead. I’m not _putting up_ with you.” They get out of the car and nod at one of the neighbours, smoking a cigarette on her balcony a storey above them.

“This fucking heat,” Karl says as they mount the steps.

“Woolly jumper weather all year round back home, yeah?”

“Just about.”

“You miss it?” Eric asks, jiggling the key in the lock. The front lock always sticks when it gets above thirty degrees.

It’s humid and stale inside, but Eric puts on the air-con full blast before doing anything else.

“Sometimes,” Karl replies. The thought of home twists inside him, makes him feel nauseous sometimes with its intensity. At least in Auckland he was acting. He even misses the cutting winds of his native Wellington that blow right through to the bone no matter how heavy your parka is, or how thick your coat. “Yeah, a lot. It’s just nice to have a place that feels like home. I don’t feel like Australia’s home, not yet.”

Eric grabs him a cold beer from the fridge and they collapse on Eric’s sofa, which is still doubling as Karl’s bed. “You’ll always have a home on my sofa, mate.” He clinks bottles with Karl and turns on the TV.

  
 _***_

  
Karl doesn’t fully register that his sex life has dwindled until he realises one day that Eric never seems to pick up either these days. They’re watching an afternoon footy match, or Eric is. Karl has been in a bad mood all day, sullen when Eric has tried to engage. He stares at the screen, unseeing, and thinks about how much he misses L &P soft drink, because Solo, the closest he’s found in Australia, is a very poor second. L&P in turn reminds him of his own career – _world famous in New Zealand_ , he thinks sarcastically – and then it’s a small step to berating himself for the lack of auditions recently.

If he doesn’t find proper acting work in the near future, he’ll have to leave, back to En-Zed with his tail between his legs and back to trying out for commercials. He could maybe beg for his soapie job back. He’s been spending so much time with Eric—

That’s when it hits him, that he’s literally spending _all_ his free time with Eric. He’s even wagged acting classes to sit in a pub with Eric, or drive around the western suburbs with him, or wander Bondi Beach at night. Karl hasn’t been back to Darlinghurst for months to look for Gary – or Andy. (He never cleared that up.) Likewise, Eric hasn’t been disappearing for whole nights.

“Your love life seems to have died, mate,” he says to Eric.

“What are you on about?”

“Neither one of us seems to be getting any, not these days.” It was supposed to be a joke.

Eric looks at him, football forgotten, and he seems to be asking a silent question.

“You can—” Karl starts to say, something choking up his throat, squeezing it from the inside so that his voice is small and strangled. “I mean. If you want to bring someone back here, you can. That’s fine. I can make myself scarce.”

“I don’t want to bring anyone back.”

“I’m hungry. We should make dinner soon,” Karl says, leaping up from the sofa. “Or heat up leftovers, anyway.” He heads to the kitchen, turning on all the light switches he can reach so that the apartment is ablaze with electric light.

Eric follows him to the kitchen. “Karl.”

Karl is busy pulling out the leftovers. He turns on the oven as high as it will go, because it’s old and takes forever to heat up, and the microwave is on the blink. They really need a new one.

“Oi, Karl,” Eric says insistently. “For fuck’s sake, mate.”

“For fuck’s sake mate what?” Karl says, rummaging in the fridge. “There’s not enough chicken for both of us but we can split it and have some of the ham from yesterday as well. Heat up the left over potato bake.”

“Bloody hell. Forget it, then,” Eric says. Karl expects him to go, but when he retreats from the fridge Eric is slumped against the kitchen bench, looking at his shoes.

“There’s no point,” Karl says. “I’m sorry, but…”

“But what?”

He doesn’t want to say it, not the real problem, because then he doesn’t have to think about it. “We live together. We’re mates.”

“We are – but I’ve been thinking about your situation, and I reckon you have too.”

“What do you mean?”

Eric stands up and looks him square in the face. “Are you thinking of going back to En-Zed?”

Karl dumps an armful of food he’s collected onto the bench, and the jar of pickled onions that they both like to snack from slides dangerously close to the edge. Eric watches it, not moving to stop it, and it halts just before it falls. Karl grabs at it and pulls it further towards the middle of the bench. “What if I am? You think you might as well jump me if I’m leaving town soon?”

Eric says, “That’s not it.”

“Well, you’re right. I’m not making any career progress, and I’m sick of construction. So yeah, I might have to go back soon.” There. He’s said it. “So there’s no point.”

“That’s the _whole_ point. I don’t want you to go.”

“Oh, so this is emotional blackmail?”

“You haven’t been getting any either,” Eric points out. “We’ve both been living like monks for the past few weeks.”

“So now it’s about getting laid.”

Eric rubs his hands furiously over his face. “Oh, get knotted, you stubborn bastard. If I just wanted a fuck I would have tried it on the first week you moved in. You know it’s not that, you _know_ what I mean. I don’t want you to go because I can’t – I don’t want…” He turns around, leans on his elbows on the kitchen bench, and gives a small smile upward at Karl. “You know what I mean,” he says.

Karl tosses a loaf of bread onto the hodgepodge of food. “Can we not talk about this now? And – and let’s just have sandwiches for tea.”

“Okay. I could go a sanger.” They both reach for something at the same time – Karl can never remember later what it was – and their hands collide, clutch, pulling each other around the bench until they’re slammed up against each other, kissing and yanking at clothes and breathing into each other’s necks and ears and mouths.

Karl breaks away first, although he can’t stop from clenching his hands in Eric’s shirt. He’s pulling Eric forward even as he steps back. “Hang on,” he says. “This is not us making sandwiches.”

“I don’t want sandwiches anymore,” Eric says, and tries to kiss him again.

“Hang _on._ Just – we need to think rationally about this for a sec.”

“Why?” Eric asks.

That’s stumped him. Karl tries to get his brain out of neutral, tries to stop staring at the way Eric’s shirt is somehow half-unbuttoned and showcasing a few black curls on his chest. “Um. Because Azz.”

“Because Azz?”

“Because if we shag, it’s just proving him right, that it’s inevitable for two gay guys living together to – to fuck.”

Eric smiles, amused. “First up, Azza’s just jealous he can’t shag whoever he wants. Second, I don’t give a shit what he thinks. And third—” He launches another kiss-strike and Karl doesn’t push him away this time.

“Still worried about Azz?” Eric asks a minute later.

Karl just shakes his head. His power of thought, along with speech, seems to have disappeared since his first real taste of Eric’s mouth. “Never wanted to suck a dick so bad in my entire life,” he says, dimly astonished. He can feel his back pushing something across the kitchen bench, knocks it with an elbow, but ignores it.

“You better be planning to follow through on that,” Eric tells him, just before an enormous crash makes them both jump and grab at each other, laugh as they realise the pickled onions have smashed on the floor. No saving them this time. Eric releases his hand from the back of Karl’s neck and cringes at the mess. “I’ll get the dustpan. You grab the mop.”

“Fuck the mop,” Karl declares. “The onions can wait.”

Eric starts laughing. “What I like about you is your romantic side. ‘The onions can wait’? No wonder you’re not picking up.”

Maybe it’s the fumes of the pickling vinegar getting to Karl’s head. Maybe it’s something else. He grabs Eric by the hips and pushes him back against the island bench. “Let me put it this way, Banadinovich. You get your dick sucked or you can clean up onions. So unless you have a previously undisclosed kink for—”

“Dick-sucking suits,” Eric interrupts.

Karl drops to his knees, ignoring the discomfort of the tiles. He hasn’t felt such a primitive need since he was a teenager, the driving want for another body, for smell and taste and feel. For _Eric_. Eric, who he’s been lusting after since the second he met him and who is unbuttoning, unzipping, unwrapping his jeans like the best present Karl has ever received.

“You want a rubber?” Eric asks uncomfortably. “I mean, I’m clean, but if you want to—”

“Shut up.  Let a master work,” Karl says, and takes the head of Eric’s cock into his mouth. He hears a satisfied sigh from Eric’s mouth above. And one discernible word: _Karl_.

Everything is right with the universe.

Karl goes so fast that he chokes a few times, too frantic for any finesse, until Eric grabs his head. “Stop – you – _fuck_. Slow down, Schumacher.”

Karl pulls off after one last, long suck for good luck. “Only you could make a car racing reference while receiving a blow job,” he says, and they both start laughing.

“Get up, you clown,” Eric says when they’ve recovered. “Foreplay’s over.” He digs in his back pocket and pulls out a condom.

“Is that for you or me?” Karl asks. He’s never really picked up any sense of Eric’s preferences. His own are simple – he’s happy to switch it up.

“ _You_ broke the onions,” Eric says, as though that solves the matter.

“ _You_ don’t have any lube,” Karl replies.

“Bugger,” Eric says, holding a fist up to his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t. I mean, I _really_ don’t, not in the bedroom either. Ran out.”

“I don’t have any either.”

They stare at each other in consternation, until Karl starts laughing. “Let’s never tell Azza about this.”

Eric gives him an incredulous look. “There are so _many_ reasons why Azza will never hear a scrap about today, and the missing lube is bottom of the list.”

“Guess I’m back to Schumachering,” Karl says, pushing Eric backwards until he hits the bench with his back. “Lie down. The tiles were killing my knees before.”

Neither of them are the kind of man to worry about fucking where they prepare food, and Eric points out that they can Spray’n’Wipe the bench afterwards. Eric hoists himself up and rests back on his elbows to watch as Karl leans over him to suck down his dick.

“Fuck. _Karl_ ,” he says again, and Karl realises that in Eric’s mind he’s _Karl_ while they’re doing this, not _Heinzy_. He’s not entirely sure what to make of the knowledge – but he’s got other things to worry about right now.

He slows it down this time, concentrating on the taste and the reactions from Eric, because hell if he’s going to have him complaining later that it was all over too quickly with no time to appreciate. But it feels like no time at all before Eric is tugging at his hair, and how very polite but very unnecessary, Karl thinks, before swallowing it all down.

Eric collapses back onto the bench, hands threaded through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he says in wonder. “I can’t believe I’ve been living with the World’s Best Blowie and not taken advantage of it before now.”

Karl wipes his mouth and smirks. “Watch it. You’ll give me a big head.”

Eric cranes his neck. “Seems to be that way,” he says, eyeing Karl’s crotch. “Christ, that’s some act to follow.” He slides forward off the bench and tucks himself away neatly. “C’arn, then. Bedroom for this.” He grabs Karl’s hand and leads him determinedly down the hall.

 

  
**  
_  
Part Five: 2008  
_  
**  
 ****  
 _  
Los Angeles  
_  
  
 _  
[  
Gamble everything for love, gamble everything  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jzWFcTko3s)  
_  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jzWFcTko3s)  
Put it in a place you keep what you need

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

  
Eric takes Karl aside on his wrap day and asks, “Do you want me to stay?” in a low, serious voice. “Because I will. Just say the word.”

Karl takes a step backwards, uncomfortable at the intimacy in front of the rest of the cast and crew. “I can’t tell you what to do, mate; it’s not up to me.”

Eric keeps hold of his arm, but his fingers stop squeezing so hopefully into Karl’s bicep. “Okay,” he says. “Alright.” His tone is level, but Karl knows that he’s disappointed. Maybe even hurt.

It’s Eric’s own fault, Karl argues to himself on the drive home. It’s not as though Eric’s making any serious declarations. “There’s no way, anyway,” he mutters, and Zoë glances at him from the passenger seat, but doesn’t speak. Karl is dropping Zoë off at a cocktail party on the way, and she’s in no mood to talk either, exhausted from the long day and wearily reapplying what she calls her “every-day make-up.”

She curses under her breath as he brakes for traffic, and eye-liner runs up her temple.

“Sorry. But I dunno why you wear all that muck. You’re beautiful anyway.”

Zoë sighs. “Oh, _Karl_ ,” she says, an educational monologue contained in two syllables.

“You’re tired, too. You should be going home, not out partying. I can’t wait to get into my bed…although maybe I’m just old.”

She yawns, wide and unladylike with an ear-shattering noise from the back of her throat. “No,” she says. “You’re right. Could crawl into my king-size bed and sleep for twelve hours, _God_.” She yawns again until Karl, too, feels like he’s falling asleep. “But I can’t,” Zoë adds briskly. “It’s Keith’s brother’s girlfriend’s birthday and I promised Keith I’d go. He can never think of anything to say to her family. At least if I’m there with him we can string together several sentences of acceptable small-talk.”

“But you’re tired,” Karl says again. “You should go home.”

“I’d rather be with Keith. Besides, home is where the heart is.”

“What does Keith think of your job?"

"Where on earth did that come from?"

"Just thinking.  Does he ever get jealous you’re so successful? And hanging out with incredibly attractive men like myself?” He grins as Zoë laughs, a little stilted, because she’s applying gloss now.

“Of course not. We support each other one hundred per cent. The relationship wouldn’t survive otherwise.”

“Mmm.”

Her make-up complete, Zoë closes her compact with a decisive _snap_ and looks at Karl. “Is this about Eric?” she asks.

“No! What? Of course not!”

“I’m going to assume, by the squeak in your voice, that it is.”

“That’s a _wild_ assumption based on nothing but – but—”

“Observation?”

“Bloody hell,” Karl groans. “Were we _that_ obvious?”

“Not really. Just a few times I saw you making googly eyes at each other.”

They drive, brake, drive, brake. “Bloody LA traffic,” Karl growls.

“It’s the next exit,” Zoë says.

“We used to sort of have a…thing. Years ago, back in Oz. We decided it would be better to keep it quiet. Not that it was a _problem_ , just…” Just that he didn’t want to go into detail about that one year that he’s kept safe and private, cocooned in history. It’s like the Opera House snow globe that he can take out and look at sometimes, shake up and watch the memories resettle in new but ever-familiar patterns.

“You don’t owe anyone an explanation,” Zoë tells him, and gives him a little pat on the thigh.

They arrive at the cocktail bar and Zoë brightens as she catches sight of Keith waiting outside for her, hunched into his dinner jacket against the chill in the night air. He raises a hand at her and Karl notes that he looks relieved.

Zoë double-checks the interior of her clutch bag. “All set. Thanks for the lift, Karl.” She gives him a sticky kiss on the cheek and disappears. Karl, smiling, wipes off neither the scented gloss nor his grin until he reaches home – a fancy high-rise apartment paid for by the studio while he’s here shooting in LA.

“Honey, I’m home,” he mutters into the darkness of atrium. He leans back against the closed door and feels – not the close, unpleasant heat of an Australian summer, or the cold shock of a New Zealand winter, but the even environment of an expensive, indoors, seasonless Los Angeles.

 _My mistake,_ he thinks. _Not home. Not yet._

  
  
**  
_Part Six: 1995-1996_  
**  
  
  
 ****  
 _Melbourne_  
  
  
 _  
[  
Even when you’re feeling warm, the temperature could drop away  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ38HfsrFOw)  
_  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ38HfsrFOw)  
Like four seasons in one day.

__  
__  
  
**~*~*~**

 

 

They move to Melbourne six weeks before Christmas, a two-beddy this time in East Brunswick, and Karl even talks about getting a proper bed of his own from St. Vinnie’s. They decide there’s no point, though; it’s not like he’d use it.

Melbourne suits Karl much better than Sydney, although the weather takes some getting used to: too hot to chilly winds; sunshine to rain back to sunshine in just a few hours. Karl adapts, learns to layer his clothes and either carry an umbrella or stoically accept that he’s probably going to get wet.

Melbourne _feels_ creative to him; it’s quirky and colourful and welcoming, and the people are pleasant, often eccentric, and from every country on earth. Fellow tram passengers are eager to help him figure out the system and how much he’s supposed to pay for his trip and which stop he needs along the route. Cafés are plentiful and the food cosmopolitan. It doesn’t have the Sydney Harbour or Bondi Beach, but it has the Yarra, and he and Eric like to walk along its banks during their lunch breaks if the sites are close enough. Artists and actors are everywhere, filtered through the entire city like well-balanced seasoning instead of concentrated in key places like they were in Sydney. Art and creation are a way of life in Melbourne, and Karl finally feels like he can breathe.

He’s also invited round to Eric’s parents’ place for Sunday lunch.

Eric’s German-Croatian family reminds Karl of his own, and the kind of food his mum serves, half Anglicised and half Germanic, brings back home to him for a moment when they sit down, sharp and immediate. He has to excuse himself, _Forgot to wash my hands_ , and grips the bathroom sink while he breathes through the onslaught of nauseating homesickness.

Eric is as laidback as ever, but his eyes linger on Karl’s face when he returns, and it takes a while before Karl’s smile is genuine again.

Eric’s older brother, Tony, does the washing up afterwards for things that won’t fit in the dishwasher, and Karl dries. “The folks like to do this usually,” Tony tells him. “I think they enjoy having some time together to chat. Dad’s still away a lot with his work. Long hours.”

Karl smiles, because it reminds him again of his own family. Even the tea-towel could belong to his own mother, the one in his hand decorated with a faded map of Europe. Tony puts a wet plate into the drip tray and Karl waits for it to stop steaming before he picks it up and envelops it carefully in cotton.

“Glad you came down with Eric,” Tony says, after a discussion about Australia’s chances in the next Ashes Test. “He talks a lot about you.”

“Really?” Karl is surprised. Eric isn’t exactly taciturn, but he’s not chatty about personal things. Karl barely knows about his life in Melbourne, before he moved to Sydney.

“I like your family,” Karl says to Eric on the way home. “Do they know you’re…” He makes a hand gesture meant to encompass the whole situation and simultaneously indicate non-heterosexuality.

“Yeah,” Eric says. “They’re fine with it. Not that we talk about it much.”

They drive in silence for ten minutes through the suburbs, the traffic quiet on a Sunday afternoon. “Your mum really wanted me to have the last of that potato salad,” Karl says, when they hit the outskirts of Brunswick.

“Didn’t you like it?”

“Yeah, of course I liked it. Just wondered if she thought we were, you know.” He restrains himself now from any hand gestures that mean ‘non-heterosexual shagging’.

“Well, I told her I was bringing my boyfriend over for Sunday lunch, so I guess she knows. Hey, Azz reckons he’s coming down next year for the AFL Grand Final, now that he has a place to crash in Melbourne.”

“You told your mum about us? That was a meet-the-parents lunch, without my full knowledge and consent?” Karl’s joking, but he’s also annoyed. If he’d known, he’d have put some effort into his hair, worn something other than a flannie over the faded TISM t-shirt he’s stolen off Eric.

“Yeah. Sorry. Seemed the easiest thing.” Eric stops for three seconds at the stop sign, even though there’s nothing coming either way. He’s a stickler for road rules, drives like he’s eighty on public roads, but Karl knows it’s because the coppers make things difficult for anyone driving a car like Eric’s. “We should go, though, even if the Saints don’t make it through.”

Karl registers that Eric is talking about the AFL final again and gives in. No point making a big deal out of meeting Eric’s family. “I’d like to go. Yeah.”

Neither of them raise the fact that Karl might be gone by that time, because construction work is harder to come by in Melbourne and none of it’s helping his _career_. None of it’s _acting_.

“We’ll go by the _Neighbours_ set next week,” Eric says, as though he’s been following exactly the same thought processes.

“That’s not how it works,” Karl chuckles. “I need an agent.”

“How do you get one of those?”

Back home, it’s all pretty simple. Karl has been part of an agency for a while there, but they aren’t international. They suggested a few affiliates in Sydney, but what with one thing and another, Karl never got around to ringing any of them. There must be agents in Melbourne, though. “I guess I can make some phone calls.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there, Schumacher. Don’t put yourself out or anything.”

Karl smiles, but he still feels uneasy. This is the same way the conversation always goes, Karl trying not to explain the overwhelming _fear_ that hits him when he thinks about trying to make headway – because what if he sucks? What if he’s just a small fish in a small pond back in New Zealand, and here in the Big Country he’s as consequential as plankton? – while Eric pushes him to make a move. _Any_ move.

“I’ll ring them on Tuesday.”

“Why not tomorrow?”

“People are busy on Mondays.”

“Bullshit, you piker. Call tomorrow.”

Karl stares out the window at the passing shops, ramshackle and greying but somehow managing to hang in there and turn a profit. “If you ring up about the talent thing, I’ll call an agent tomorrow and see what they say.”

The ‘talent thing’ is all Eric’s been talking about for weeks, a talent show down at the local pub, and Eric has been wondering if he should try out with his stand-up comedy. At least, he talked about it daily until Karl told him to put up or shut up, and he hasn’t mentioned it since. Karl has been feeling slightly guilty, thinking he’s trampled all over Eric’s nascent dreams.

“I don’t know,” Eric says, slowing through the gears for the red light ahead.

“C’arn, Bananaman. You know you want to.”

It’s not until they pull up at the apartment that Eric says, “Alright. But you have to call around for an agent tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

  
***

  
In the end, Eric proves much more successful. The talent show is a springboard for him, and in a few short months he becomes the toast of the Melbourne stand-up scene, and he’s actually earning decent money from it. More than Karl makes in the odd jobs he picks up, and he still can’t find agency representation in Australia. He keeps up regular calls to his agent back home, but nothing comes of that either.

Eric is excited, naturally, and can’t stop talking about all his opportunities, how much fun he’s having. Karl goes to see him perform as often as he can, even when it stings his pride, but soon enough he finds himself snapping or rolling his eyes when Eric tries out some jokes on him.

Eric seems to understand, eventually. “You should drop by the _Neighbours_ set,” he suggests again one night.

“I don’t have a fucking agent,” Karl says through a clenched jaw. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I’m just trying to help. Maybe you should come with me to some auditions. You’re funny. You could do stand-up.”

Karl stares at him. “I’m not a _comedian_ ,” he spits, as though he’s swearing. “I’m an _actor_.”

Dinner is a very quiet affair that night, until Karl tries to mend their bridges. “When’s your next show?”

Eric gives a shrug and mumbles, “Saturday night, I think. Dunno. I’d have to check.”

“You got anything new for it?” Shit. That sounded like a criticism. “I mean…anything you want to practice on me?”

“Nah, mate, nah. It’s all good.”

“You _can_ practice stuff on me,” Karl offers, but Eric just shrugs again and Karl feels the irritation building again. “What, I don’t have a sense of humour after all?”

“It’s not that. Just leave it. It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m not jealous,” Karl says, scowling, but he is. He doesn’t like to admit it, but it seems so unfair that Eric – who has changed his last name now to Bana, better for publicity apparently – is getting media offers and people calling him for interviews, while Karl is stuck plastering walls. He can’t even do _that_ right; he keeps getting laid off.

His heart’s just not in it, and he misses home more than ever.

  
***

  
It happens, finally, for Karl, but not how he planned it. He gets a call from his agency in New Zealand – he could have sworn they’d forgotten his name – he’s had interest from the set of _Hercules_ to play Cupid. Karl cringes when he hears. It’s not like his last regular role was Shakespeare, but playing a gay paramedic on a soapie at least allowed him to keep most of his clothes on. At least he hasn’t been typecast, he thinks moodily, but then he has visions of himself in a nappy and cherub wings. He’s never even watched an episode of _Hercules_ , but he’s seen the ads on telly. It looks stupid.

“It’s only ten days of work,” his agent tells him. “Just one episode, but a chance to make contacts. Besides, it’s not like you’re getting any work over there, is it?”

Karl wants to hang up on the bastard, but maintains his cool. If nothing else, it would be nice to get back, catch up with his family and friends. So he goes, and it’s like his life lights up again when he’s on set. _Acting_. Doing what he’s meant to be doing, bouncing off creative people and fitting effortlessly in to the cast.

He comes back to Australia with a second-rate bleach job that makes Eric raise his eyebrows when he picks him up from the airport.

Karl runs his hands through it, embarrassed.

“Sexy,” Eric offers, after some thought.

“Yeah?”

Eric laughs and pulls him in for a hug, and Karl grins back into the side of his neck, warm and prickly against his nose. “I look like a total dickhead,” he says into Eric’s skin.

“You do, but fuck it, right? We’ll get some L’Oreal on the way home, dye you back to normal.”

“Because I’m worth it,” Karl agrees.

It’s only a few weeks later that he has to fly back, again, and get bleached, again, because the powers that be liked him, and want him back for _Hercules_ and maybe for a role in _Xena_ , too.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” he says, hanging up from his excited agent. The living room suddenly seems stuffy, and he wants to open a window.

Eric, settled on the couch and watching TV, looks up at him. “You’re making headway, and you’re cranky about it?”

“I don’t like being away.”

“Australia’s feeling more like home now, eh?”

Not really. But going back to En-Zed last time shook Karl up more than he liked to admit, and the thought of heading over again fills him with a strange panic. He loved the work, and he loved that he got back to Welly to see his old friends, and his family, and he loved not feeling aware of his accent. But it no longer felt like home. New Zealand has moved on without him, or Karl has moved on without New Zealand. He’s not sure which it is. But Australia isn’t his home either.

He feels lost.

Things with Eric are strained, have been for a while, as though they’re both waiting for the other to make a move, to declare a stance and have an argument about it.

Karl wanders around the living room while Eric watches him, and stops by the window to yank it open. “Oi!” He picks up the Opera House snow globe, resting in its customary position on the windowsill. “What happened here?” There’s a crack in the crown of the globe, although the snow sparkles still flurry and settle when Karl gives it a shake.

Eric looks guilty. “Sorry about that, mate –it got knocked around the other day when I was opening the window. But listen, I’m due up in Sydney for a TV audition, a new comedy show. I’m going up next week, so I’ll get you a new snow globe then.”

Karl turns the damaged globe over in his hands for a while, saying nothing, and then sets it down carefully. “I guess I’ll go back to En-Zed for _Xena_. I need the work. And it’s not for long, just another two weeks. Four at the most.”

“Yeah.” Eric sounds disappointed.

“You didn’t tell me about the TV audition.”

“It’ll probably never get picked up, anyway.”

Karl has no doubt that it will be picked up. Eric’s career is on an upward trajectory.

 

  
**  
_Part Seven: 2008_  
**  
 ****  
 _Los Angeles_  
  
 _  
[  
My happiness is slowly creeping back  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZR7DWDCd-pQ)  
_  
 __  
[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZR7DWDCd-pQ)  
Now you’re at home

__  
__  
**~*~*~**

  
Karl manages to make it three hours, brooding in his LA apartment, before he calls Eric, who must be hundreds of miles out over the Pacific by now. It rings through to voicemail.

“Um. It’s me. Karl.” He can’t think of anything else to say. The ending beep eventually sounds on the answering service, so he has to call again, and this time it goes straight to voicemail. “Sorry, got cut off. Just wanted to say I hope you had a safe flight and – and maybe give us a ring when you get in.”

He resists the desire to bash the phone into his forehead after ending the call, and jumps as it rings in his hand. It’s Eric.

Karl answers it. “You’re not supposed to use your phone on the plane.”

“G’day to you, too, Heinzy. And I’m not on the bloody plane.”

“Where are you?”

There’s a _bing-bing_ from the intercom on the wall. “Guess.”

Karl isn’t sure whether to hang up the phone or buzz him up or collapse in a heap from relief, and he manages to drop the phone in his haste to do _something_. He finally manages to thumb the buzzer and has a few moments’ anxious wait before he hears Eric’s heavy tread in the hallway. He’d know that sound anywhere.

He snaps off the atrium light – it’s too bright, too much Hollywood glare – and wrenches open the door before Eric can knock.

“Come here, you dickhead,” Eric says roughly, pulling him into the corridor for a hug.

“Let’s get out of the hallway,” Karl suggests, his voice cracking on the last word and embarrassing him.

“Yeah. I think we’d better have a chat.”

For some reason, Eric finds it hilarious that Karl has a selection of teas in the kitchenette, but he agrees that a cuppa is the best idea to get them started. Karl makes them each a cup of tea in thick handled coffee mugs, and they seat themselves in the living room. Karl feels awkward now that the first storm of gladness has passed.

“Your place is nicer than mine,” Eric comments, casting a glance around. “I just got a hotel suite.”

Karl can’t do small talk, not now. “I’m sorry I left things like I did, all those years ago. I should have come back to Melbourne. To you. I didn’t handle that right, the whole thing.” Work had taken off back in En-Zed, which meant months of phone calls and promises to come back, or visit, until finally he had to ask Eric to ship his meagre belongings back across. Eric had been pleasant throughout, never blamed him, always supported his choices, agreed it was for the best if they gave up trying to make a cross-Tasman relationship work.

Eric blows on his tea and takes a sip, his eyes cast down. When he speaks, he’s obviously choosing his words carefully. “You did what you had to do for your career, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Besides, it was my fault. I was always waving my success in your face, big-noting myself. I must have made you feel like shit half the time—”

“No, you didn’t. That’s not how it was.”

Eric sips again and says, “That’s how it seemed to me. When I thought back over everything.”

“I was jealous,” Karl says. “I was a stupid kid and I was jealous, and I couldn’t even support you properly like I should have, been _happy_ for you. I couldn’t hack it, so I ran off back home.” He sets his tea down carefully on the glass coffee table. “Nearly killed me, though, I was so miserable. When you sent back my stuff, I had to ring in sick to work.”

“A sickie? That bad?”

“It was the snow globe,” Karl admits, threading his fingers together and squeezing them until the tips turn white.

His possessions had arrived back swiftly from Australia. When he opened the first of the three large boxes, he found a brand new Opera House snow globe inside, nestled into a worn t-shirt. The globe was smooth, devoid of cracks, the Opera House itself a little bigger than it had been in the old one.

He’d had to shut it away in a dark drawer for a long time, but now— “Follow me,” he says, standing up, and Eric obeys.

In the bedroom, on one of the nightstands that hugs the side of the immaculately-made bed, stands the snow globe. It looks completely out of place, lurid and kitsch in the soft electric light.

They hover near it, neither reaching out for it. “So, yeah,” Karl says, and clears his throat. “I take it with me when I travel. Helps make me feel more at home, less like I’m living out of a suitcase.”

Eric shoves a hand into his jacket pocket and holds out something for Karl to see. It’s the old snow globe – a strip of duct tape stuck down over the crack in the crown, and Karl can see that most of the fluid inside has leaked away, or maybe evaporated. The snow flakes remain, shifting sluggishly in the remaining liquid as Eric tips his hand.

“Not so snowy anymore,” Eric says. “But I couldn’t throw the bloody thing away.” He takes a few steps to the nightstand and places his cracked snow globe next to the other. “What do you reckon?” he asks, still looking at the globes as though they’re a crazy display in a second-rate antiques store. “Can we make a go of it?”

“I was jealous of you,” Karl says quietly. “And I acted like a fool. I’m sorry.”

Eric turns to him with a smile. “Bloody oath, you did.  But I wasn’t blameless, either, and I hope you’ve forgiven me. I forgave you a long time ago, mate. Water under the bridge.”

“Snow on the Opera House?” Karl suggests with a weak smile.

“I wish I could have made things easier for you back then. I should’ve shut up about my career. I should’ve pushed you more with the acting, set you up with some of the contacts I made.”

“You can lead a horse to water,” Karl says with a shrug. “Besides, that wasn’t the only problem. I wasn’t in a good place.”

Eric nods in understanding. “You were missing your folks. You were away from home, all alone. I should’ve—”

“No,” Karl interrupts. “You did what you could. And besides…” He has courage enough, finally, to reach out and cup Eric’s face, stroke a thumb over his cheekbone. “I _was_ home. I just didn’t get it at the time. But now I’m home again.”

“I’ll move to En-Zed,” Eric says, blinking rapidly. “Or we could live here, in LA. Wherever you like. England, Europe – wherever.”

“You silly bastard. I don’t care where we live; we’ll figure something out. As long as you’re there, that’s – that’s all I need.” Karl flushes, because he’s not used to declaring things like that out loud. Eric gives a loud sniff and a self-deprecating chuckle. “Besides, we can’t just move in together off the bat. We need to give it some time. Get used to each other again.”

“You’re expecting me to romance you?” Eric grins at him now and pulls Karl even closer by the front of his shirt.

“I’m not delusional,” Karl tells him drily, and kisses him. The taste of him is a shock. The years melt away until there they are again with dense Australian heat tangible in the air and a desperate need to touch each other everywhere they can reach. “Fuck,” Karl says, bewildered.

“Top idea.” Eric pulls him down onto the bed and pulls at his clothes until Karl grabs his wrists.

“Slow down, Schumacher,” he drawls. “That’s what you always used to say, yeah?”

“In all my years, Karl, I never met a bloke who shagged as well as you,” Eric says, his breath uneven, and a laugh in his voice. “So we can do this fast or we can do it slow, whatever you want. Whatever you want.”

Karl tries not to preen as the impact of Eric’s words hits home. “Really? So you’ve been pining for me?”

Eric goes quiet then, and serious, tries to say something but breaks it off. Karl studies his face, memorising the lines that weren’t there years ago when he knew Eric’s face as well as his own – better.

“Alright,” he says. “No joking around.”

Eric looks grateful, and pulls him in for a kiss.

It’s like the first time all over again, like they get a chance to re-do history – only this time, Karl has all the necessary supplies. He’s half expecting banter over who gets to do what, but Eric forestalls him.

“Let me,” he says, and rolls the condom over Karl’s dick just as easily as he ever did.

“You’re sure?” Karl asks pointlessly.

“I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and think this was all a dream. I want to have absolute proof.”

“Absolute proof from a sore—”

“No joking,” Eric reminds him, but his eyes are twinkling. “But yes, since you ask.”

It’s to be expected that the sex is a little awkward from time to time, and Karl has to stop and switch position when his knee gives a dramatic twinge (he’s not as young as he used to be, and since he’s the one doing all the hard work Eric can shut up and roll over into a new position like he’s _told_ ), but everything is so familiar that it doesn’t matter. Eric still makes the same noises, and he still wants to cuddle ferociously afterwards like he can’t bear their bodies being separate. Karl still needs a good ten minutes to recover his capacity for conscious thought, and he drinks in the smell of them both like he’s sniffing an expensive bottle of wine.

“I missed you,” he says when his voice returns.

“Me too.” Eric shifts off him then, rolls onto his back and puts his arms behind his head. “I meant it, you know. I’ll move wherever you want.”

“Istanbul.”

“No worries.”

“Ho Chi Minh City.”

“Always wanted to go there.”

“Vladivostok.”

“Russian accents are sexy.”

Karl smiles. “Auckland.  Sydney.  Wellington.  Melbourne.”

Eric slides a hand down under the covers to link his fingers with Karl’s. “As long as you don’t say anywhere in Tasmania, we’re gold.  They're strange down there.”

"What if we fuck things up again?  What if _I_ fuck things up again?"

"Nah.  You've changed.  I've changed.  We might have problems, but they won't be the same ones we had before."

Karl turns his head to look at the twin snow globes.  "You're not filling me with confidence, here."

"Alright, what about this? Last time I was in Sydney I met a bloke who had lived all over the world.  Abu Dhabi, Dublin, Vanuatu.  He came from Perth originally, and he was about to move back there again.  I asked him if he thought it'd be boring going back after seeing the whole world, and he told me I was looking at it all wrong.  You don't go back to places - you can't.  You have to come at them new every time, with your new experiences and as a new person, even to places that you count as home.  I reckon it might be the same for us."  

Karl thinks it over, and turns back to look at Eric.  "So we can start over, brand new?  I like that.  That's good."  The thought calms him, and his fears slip away.  It's exciting, too - the idea that he gets a chance to live it all again, build up their relationship on a solid foundation this time.  "This time, I promise I won't be such a sulky bastard.  But you have to promise me something, too."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah.  Grow your hair back in.  I like your curls."

Eric turns on his full-force grin, his face lighting up, and reaches over Karl for the unbroken snow globe.  He shakes it in Karl's face, and then drops his head back to the pillow so they can both watch the flakes swirling over the Opera House.

"See?" Eric asks, when the snow settles.  "She'll be right, mate."

  
_  
**~*~*~**   
_   
_  
**The End**   
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**~*~*~**   
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****  
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****  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/medea_fic/pic/0003hbgx/)   


 

  



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